Different
by Kel6
Summary: It’s not always safe to trust people you run into in pubs, but sometimes it’s better than family. Sirius and James at eight years old. One-shot.


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Title: Different

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Rating: G

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Summary: It's not always safe to trust people you run into in pubs, but sometimes it's better than family.

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Disclaimer: The character don't belong to me and I'm making no money from this.

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A/N: OK, this is completely un-betad apart from by spell-check and myself, yes it does have some inaccurate grammar, but some of it is on purpose. This is the youngest I've ever tried to write this too, so I'm not sure how accurate it'll come out. This is separate to all my other fics. Please read and review!

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The small boy with dark hair dashed into the pub and looked around frantically. He looked upset, he was sweating slightly. He gave a panicked look at the door through which he had arrived, and dived behind the bar. Fortunately for him, the bar-tender was else-where.

Barely seconds later, a harassed looking woman entered and surveyed the room. She closely resembled the boy, with black hair and light eyes, which seemed to pierce the furniture. She was tall and though not unattractive, she had a harsh look about her.

But she saw what the boy did not: someone else was in the pub.

'Where did he go?' she snapped.

'Who?' replied the voice, quietly and calmly.

'The boy who just ran in here, you stupid child!'

The boy behind the bar curled up into a ball. This was it, he was going to die. Again. Why couldn't his mother just leave him be? He couldn't believe he hadn't noticed someone else was there, someone else who would sell out his location. His mother was too scary to lie to.

'He went out into the street,' came the reply, cool as ever.

The boy's breath caught in his throat. He didn't dare believe it. Had this person _lied_ to his mother? People just didn't do that.

'Into the Muggle world!?'

His mother was practically shouting. Any minute now the person would get too scared and tell her.

There was silence, then footsteps, and the swinging of a door. She hadn't found him. Someone had covered for him. The boy didn't dare get up, all the same, it was too good to be true.

'You can come out now,' suggested the voice. 'She went outside.' Slowly the boy got to his feet and peered over the bar. Sitting in the corner, obscured by shade was another boy, about his age, possibly younger. He had short black hair that stuck up everywhere, and round glasses. 'I'm James Potter,' he said. 'Who're you?'

The boy stepped out, slightly nervously. He'd heard of the Potters. His family hated them, and vice-versa. 

'Sirius Black,' he said slowly.

The boy called James gestured for him to come sit next to him. 'I saw you running, and then that lady came in, and I thought that you probably didn't want to be found, so I didn't tell her,' he said, in one breath. 'I've heard of your family, daddy says you're all weird, and I thought that lady seemed weird, but you seem normal enough, was she your mother?'

'Yeah,' muttered Sirius, in reply. He didn't like admitting it, but she was.

'I 'spect you'll get into awful trouble,' said James Potter, relishing in the thought. 'Mummy was really mad last time I ran off, though it might have something to do with the frog I put in her soup.'

Sirius smiled shyly, here was one who knew his mind. There were very few ways he could make his mother pay for all the stuff she said and did. Slimy things were one of them. He suspected that James's mother was probably nicer than his though.

'How old are you?' he asked.

'Eight last week,' replied James, proudly. 'I got a new broom, too, it's loads of fun and I've played on it _loads_, daddy said I should be on the England team. How old are you?'

'Eight as well,' replied Sirius. 'My birthday was four days ago.'

'We have nearly the same birthdays then! Only you're… two days younger then me. I don't know anyone else who has a birthday so close to mine.' The two boys smiled at each other, connected somehow by the closeness of birthdays. 'What did you get?' 

Sirius froze in his seat. Compared with a new broom, how was his birthday going to look? Some horrible fancy dress robes with the Black family crest that he would never wear and a threat that if he didn't stop acting like a Gryffindor he'd not get anything next year.

'Nothing much,' he dismissed the question. A flash of a frown crossed James's face, but he didn't push further, Sirius was glad. 'Where are your mother and father?' he asked, trying to steer the conversation away from his own family.

'Shopping in Diagon Alley, they think I'm too annoying to shop with so they told me to stay here. I 'spect they'll be back soon. We'll be going to Hogwarts together, won't we? What house do you think you'll be in?'

'Probably Slytherin,' he muttered, glumly, staring intently at the grain in the wooden table. He'd heard of how _Gryffindor_ the Potters were. 'It's where my family always go, they wouldn't let me go elsewhere.'

'I don't expect,' said James, slowly. 'That they let you run off into Diagon Alley. But you did, anyway. Daddy says it doesn't matter what your family want, it matters what you want, and what you're good at, 'course, me and my parents want the same thing, so that's OK. Where do you want to be?'

'Anywhere but Slytherin.' Sirius couldn't help but brighten up slightly. James was right, if he was put somewhere else then what could his parents do about it? Nothing, that was what.

'Maybe you could be in Gryffindor with me,' said James. 'And you could help me put toads in other people's soup, or different stuff, if we get bored.'

'Why are you being nice to me?' asked Sirius, suddenly. 'My father's always saying how the Potters don't like us and we don't like them.'

'Daddy says the same,' said James, with a small smile. 'But parents are silly, a lot of the time. What's the point in me being mean to someone because my daddy says I should? You don't want to be in Slytherin, and you seem nice, which is good enough for me.'

Sirius grinned, relaxing a bit. It was the first time in ages someone had been nice to him.

'I bet if we were both in Gryffindor, we could do all sorts of fun things,' he said, envisioning all the trouble they could get into. 

'Exactly,' said James.

Two others entered the room, they nodded to the barman and walked over to the table.

'Hello James, have you found a friend?' James nodded eagerly.

'This is Sirius,' he said. 'Sirius, this is my parents, they're nice really. We're going to be in the same year at Hogwarts because he's only two days younger than me,' he told his parents.

'Sirius…?' questioned James's father.

'Black,' muttered Sirius. He saw the look the two Potters exchanged. James saw it too. He sent Sirius one that said 'Don't worry, they're just stupid sometimes.'

Unfortunately for Sirius, his mother chose that moment to reappear into the Leaky Cauldron. She stared at Sirius, and the Potters, realising that James had lied to her, and also that she couldn't say anything in front of his parents.

'What did I tell you about running off?' she demanded. 'And hiding? I've been searching for you for ages!' She marched over to Sirius and took hold of his arm. 'Come with me! I've got enough to do without you messing around!'

As she practically dragged him back into Diagon Alley, Sirius shot a look over his shoulder at James, whose parents were probably beginning a lecture on Why the Black Family Just Aren't Good to Spend Time With. James grinned and mouthed 'See you in Hogwarts!' before Sirius was pulled through the door and back into Diagon Alley.

'Those were the Potters, weren't they?' snapped his mother. 'You should be avoiding them as much as possible. As different from us decent people as they could be.' She was apparently unaware that James Potter was receiving the exact same lecture in the pub.

Sirius grinned at the thought that maybe they weren't so different, after all.


End file.
